The NHS has recently issued new Chaplaincy guidelines, providing good practice guidelines for the NHS in England [NHS 2015].

NB: From 1 April 2015, the NHS Chaplaincy programme will be hosted by the Nursing Directorate.

‘The NHS Chaplaincy programme is part of NHS England’s drive to ensure good patient care and compliance with policy and legislative drivers.’

It was ‘prepared by The Revd Dr Chris Swift in consultation with the Chaplaincy leadership Forum [CLF] and the National Equality and Health Inequalities Team, NHS England’. The CLF was formed in September 2013 as a means of dialogue between NHS England and the various chaplaincy organisations.

Professor Stephen Pattison - This paper explores the need for a renewed and creative engagement with theology on the part of chaplains so that it articulates and assists in chaplains’ public work in (mostly secular) institutions. Acknowledging the current performed public theology of chaplains and the dearth of formal theological activity, possible inhibitors to engaging with theology are then discussed. Images and metaphors of theology are advanced with a view to showing the pluriformity of this activity. It is then suggested that chaplains could adopt more creative and imaginative approaches to the theological tradition that might enable prophetic and apologetic roles within organisations, to the benefit of those organisations and chaplaincy itself.

NSMHF Report of the forum:

Child abuse and its impact on adult mental health: how can spirituality help?

The forum discussion looked at the context and current research, the effect of early life trauma and abuse [the symptoms of disrupted attachment, complex trauma and dissociation and explored the importance of the role of the body and brain in symptoms and recovery], explored the three phase model of recovery and looked spirituality [what helps and what hinders].

In this paper, on the rediscovery of the spiritual dimension in health and social care in England, Peter Gilbert looks at the current state of health and social care in England, and argues passionately that true leadership is required to being a sense of vocation and an holistic view of the person back into services so that the spirit of the age is not simply reductionist and material, but both personal and transpersonal.

In this paper psychiatrist and Hindu pastor Chetna Kang considers how understanding service users’ symptoms in the context of their cultural background can be of great importance, and looks at the teachings of Hinduism and how they may influence Hindus suffering mental health problems, in particular, British Hindus.

A report by the Project Manager of JAMI - The Jewish Association for Mental Illness, describing the development of a Jewish-specific forum and website bringing together London’s mental health service providers, with useful lessons for culturally-sensitive mental health services.

The second part of the article on pilgrimage, by Jay Boodhoo, gives a Hindu perspective on 'musafir' or being a traveller, looking at pilgrimage as 'a series of inter-generational journeys that allow us to connect and integrate our past, present and future'

The final part of the article, by Sarah Carr, looks at pilgrimage as 'a ritual to make sense of suffering and even transform because of it'. She uses the metaphor of people experiencing distress suffering like pilgrims crossing a formidable landscape then striving to negotiate interactions with a seemingly unchanged world